Moony !

The hat was made with a speed in between projects. It is Moon by Kim Hargreaves, knitted with Rowan's cocoon. I'm sorry but I forgot to take proper photos before I gave it away to a friend who had a long spell in hospital. What I do have is some silly photos of a big unblocked feminine hat on a mischievous little two years old head :) .I hope you can see the potential..

Eureka !! iphone gloves..

Today while doing the school run I've notice a weird knitted gloves on one of the moms. The tips of the thumb and two other fingers were knitted in a different yarn.We got chatting and she explained ,the gloves were  bought online and especially designed to touch , scroll etc your iphone whilst on your hands. I got a closer look and the yarn on those fingers tips had a shiny metallic silver thread through it. Here is a sketch (ignore the numbers)

I thought to myself what a brilliant idea, in this cold weather, when out and in need of texting, e-mails replying , facebooking etc on your ipad and iphone  , you don't want really to be messing with your gloves. I need to experiment  and not sure if its going to work but if I was to knit the fingertips with a electrically conductive metallic yarn (think Habu ) then I would create my own iphone gloves and boost my inner knitter ego!!!

The Galvanized Cardigan

I just seamed today the underarm live stitches and absolutely adore this little cardi. I like the color combination -so elegant. I like the simplicity of the construction and I'm  happy with the fit.

A few slight modifications; decided to knit only 39cm of the sleeves before joining to the body. The sleeves grew in length during blocking. I always let the garment soak in a mild bath and then spin it 1600 in my washing machine to get all excess water away. The felted tweed bloomed as I knew it would. Also shortened by half an inch those corrugated cuffs. My sleeves gauge is tighter than the body gauge  because this is how I knit with dpns but as I have slim arms it works for me.

If I was to knit it again, I would add about 6 more sts to the button bands , I feel it pulls in the fronts a bit, and cast off tighter the neck band. All in all  I'm very happy with the design :) 

I used 8 different  buttons from a vintage set.  So pleased .

Well done , Amy Christoffers !

Does SOFT always is BEST ??

We knitters tend to favour soft yarns, we go oohh and aahh over cashmere, merino, baby alpaca and such and I'm no different. I paid top sterling for my quivit and angora but if I'm to take good hard look at what I'm wearing in my daily routines it is going to be garments that stood the grime of life. I'm a mother of four kids under 10 years, I have 2 border collies, a flock of chickens (cockerel Henry and his six wives) , I don't have a cleaner as such so I'm fully hands on person. That doesn't go well with malabrigo lace which will peel horribly as soon as I glance at it. All this preference of soft yummy wool results in the fading of many great sheep breeds and we knitters have contributed to this . Wool have so many characters and a great source to reading and understanding those I found in this book  by Clara Parkes.
Here the story goes back to September  2010 where I was asked to have a knitting stand in the new forest festival in Minstead. If you got the patience you can see me knitting and talking about 5:20 into the clip.

The stand next to me belong to Sue cole, spinner and weaver. She is rearing some gotland sheep in Mintead (my neighbouring village) and was kind enough to gift me some 3 ply natural grey gotland yarn. The grey actually consists of varied amounts of black and white hairs. The yarn is Not soft, but has a lot of attitude, and it is pleasing and satisfying to the touch. Yarn you can trust not to wear off.
So I used it in 'Curling' by Anne Hanson.

You can always trust Anne to produce beautiful lace . This is the left mitten unblocked, whats left is obviously the right one. Le sigh..... :)